


Periastron

by countessofbiscuit



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Flashbacks, Inappropriate Use of the Force, Oral Sex, Reunited and It Feels So Good, fight me, five years is as long as i will separate these two, if your blood runs 501st blue..., living on the edge, what's the space version of the mile high club
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2017-11-26
Packaged: 2019-02-04 08:51:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12767400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/countessofbiscuit/pseuds/countessofbiscuit
Summary: If you could turn the hours back in time, you'd know I'd been running in circles for you.- Greta Svabo BechMaybe two veterans can turn "for old times' sake" into "from now on".





	Periastron

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MandaloriansRevenge](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MandaloriansRevenge/gifts).



Three standard rotations and she hadn’t jumped his bones. There was some measure of false honor in that.

Ahsoka Tano had restored contact with her old informant professionally, and she would recruit him professionally. 

Nevermind that their relationship had been hardly professional even when she’d been a Commander—a General even, in the twilight of another life—and he’d been CT-7567, Captain in the 501st Battalion of the Grand Army of the Republic. Looking back, it’d been more incestuous than anything. 

Sitting on the edge of her bunk in her favorite fatigues, a grey dress and comfy footed leggings, she drummed her fingers on the lumpy mattress, smiling to herself. 

_It’s like the war all over again._

Of course, a lot of things were. But this…. this was funny: this unspoken bond between “old friends”. Covertly observing each other in crowded briefing rooms and turning over every iteration of _should I, does he, could we, do they,_ etc. Nostalgic, almost—which wasn’t a word that usually came to mind when kicking in plastoid helmets (colorless and ugly but _still_ ) or blasting ships bearing cog insignia out of some painted sky. 

Clone and Padawan. Captain and Commander. Agent and Informant. 

But both capital _'R'_ Rebels now. 

So Ahsoka rebelled against her better nature and common sense a little faster this time around. Back then she hadn’t been alone and touch-starved for the greater portion of five fekkin’ years. 

Not that she’d been entirely the monkish, ex-Jedi of some ironic fable. A handful of de-chipped clones weren’t the only remnants of the GAR to be found wandering through wastelands, logging in forest moons, or falling in with pirates. Many evinced anti-establishment principles that “Fulcrum” diligently exploited. Mostly with credits, dearly acquired; sometimes at the business end of a lightsaber; only once or twice in a dark embrace with a painfully familiar face.

Ahsoka’s lekku flinched, remembering the phantom touch of awkward fingers. She stood up with fresh purpose and was careful to avoid hitting the top bunk with her montrals. They were nearly mature, now. She’d been sailing across the stars for years in this CR90, which had been modified to ferry refugees, informants, and illicit goods, and not once had she regretted turning the stateroom suite into a feeble imitation of a sparring room. Until now. But she disregarded the configuration of her cabin, narrow and awkward, as the immediate prospect of securing the best bunkmate ever pooled in her tummy and curled around her heart.

Besides, tight spaces had never hindered them before. 

“Oh captain, my captain,” she purred into the _whoosh!_ of the opening door. She squirreled up the ladder and banked right towards the hatch that magna-locked her ship to the _Ghost,_ where she’d find—probably very much at his ease, losing to Ezra in game of dejarik—the one person she hadn’t lost when her universe collapsed in on itself. Just a bit of Locris Syndicate technology holding them together against the vacuum of space, the vacuum of time. 

Other than the fact he was somehow _winning_ this round, Ahsoka found Rex exactly as she’d expected: reclining in the bend of the _Ghost_ ’s lounge berth, his comical boots propped up on a repurposed droid-popper crate, one arm tucked behind his head so that a bronze bicep kissed his ear. 

She came upon the table just as Rex’s Grimtaash body-slammed Ezra’s Ng’ok to the ground. Ezra snorted in frustration but beamed when he saw her approaching.

“Hey,” he said, turning to Rex, “now Ahsoka can vouch for me. Tell him, Ahsoka: the Force doesn’t work on holotable games.”

“Well if it did, I'd hope you’d be ahead. Otherwise Kanan will have a lot to answer for,” she replied with a raised brow. Something carnal inside her couldn’t stop gawping at the roundness of Rex’s upper arm. 

Ezra glanced at Rex and then back at Ahsoka. Force-sensitive or no, the kid could read a room.

“Eh, I’ll let you win later, Rex,” he said, sliding out of the berth and jogging towards the crew’s quarters. As he left, he tossed them both a jaunty salute that convinced Ahsoka, above and beyond everything she’d seen and heard about the duo so far, that Kanan was doing a fine job passing along only the best of Jedi tenets. 

Rex snorted as he turned off the game and gestured for Ahsoka to take a seat. She didn’t take it and the room fell silent.

The unanswered messages had been resolved, if not entirely discussed. Wolffe, poor _vod_ , had transmitted the explanation not an hour after Rex had come aboard. For her own sanity, Ahsoka had to turn off the extended apology twenty minutes in. She finally understood what Rex had meant in his throwaway comment about the old commander’s episodes of “delusional distress” that had nearly smoked her recruitment effort. Not to mention Hera’s crew. 

The second Wolffe had sobbed for his General, there was no longer anything to forgive. 

But the silent separation of five years still yawned between the two 501st veterans. And so far, they hadn’t been able to do more than punt some cheeky remarks and wise-ass observations into the gulf and hope for an echo of former selves.

“Did some critter take offense at your boots, captain?” Ahsoka finally said, pointing to Rex’s stained footwear. 

“Ah,” he chuckled, “it’s that blasted Seelos sand. Looks as white as my beard, but the aluminum tarnishes plastoid if you don’t clean it on the daily. And, well, polishing boots was one of the easier habits to kick. Besides"—shrugging and wiggling his feet—"these aren’t vintage. Unlike the rest of my kit. Or the rest of me.”

Ahsoka rolled her eyes. “Enough.” She flopped down next to him, remembering the determination she’d mustered in her cabin. “I’m the old one, remember?” 

“A technicality—and I meant what I said as a compliment.”

If she couldn’t feel the sincerity that rolled off him, warm as the harvest wind over Raada’s fields, she could certainly see it in those golden eyes. They gleamed. With happiness? Or with the watery onset of nostalgia? Ahsoka didn’t know or care. Rex’s right arm, thrown across the back of the berth, hovered so near her head that teasing apart the finer strands of Force awareness was beyond her power. In her distraction, one of her own hands found his beard. 

A hyperfixation on hair was famously endemic in glabrous species. Ahsoka was hardly an exception. She’d protested his tightly shorn hair in the past, and now she mourned his blonde fringe altogether. But the beard was… an interesting compromise. 

Her fingers worked through it to scratch his jaw in short strokes. The hairs tickled her palm, and before she knew what she was doing her other hand joined in the fun, itching for the sensation. _Holy supernovas she’d missed this_. Her biological urge to _touch_ meant Ahsoka now found herself in possession of the good captain’s handsome face, white tufts sliced in between sienna fingers. Although there was nothing overtly sexual about their position, Spectres One through Six (yes, even the droid) would recognize the intimacy—

— _neeevermind_ Rex’s hand had found the delicate inner sweep of her headtail and now it was _definitely_ sexual. Her breath hitched; his hand squeezed. 

They had science that could jump her ship the next system faster than they could get to her cabin—and some parts of her required attention three weeks ago yesterday. But where was teleportation when a girl needed it?! Or better yet, that “fading” nonsense, where you could just _poof!_ transplant yourself with your mind, attempts at which had been all the rage among younglings who’d read too many bootleg holonovels that romanticized archaic Force-wielding with wands and incantations. (That was _before_ harrowing trips to Dathomir were integrated into war-time Padawan curriculum.)

Still. The Force could do some miraculous things. 

Like allow Ahsoka to dip fingers of herself into the torrent of Rex’s mind. It was a power she’d so often abstained from; first out of respect, and later out of habit. But curiosity compelled her now; she had to _know_ if he still ached for her too.

Ahsoka found memory after memory cascading across his consciousness and, Force help her, she drowned in it. 

_That corridor on the Resolute. The bathtub. That engine room. The booth at 79’s. The briefing table. Ord Mantell. That balcony. Kuat. Her cabin. His next._

It wasn’t all stolen moments and hot embraces; the stream of his thoughts rocked between some recollections that were frankly agonizing. 

_The APB. A larty looming in the rain. The bomb factory. The Temple steps. A warehouse. The ruins of Rishi station. That forsaken asteroid. Shili. Cato Neimoidia._

_Mandalore._

Ahsoka tried—with care, considering she was fussing about in Rex’s head, and _rusty_ didn’t even begin to cover this particular part of her Jedi training—to shove those thoughts deep down. To let the happier stream run to its hopefully arousing end. But then, _oh kriff, she was fussing about in Rex’s head_. And he wasn’t just _remembering,_ he was _rehearsing_ , cooking up ways to cope with goodbye again before they’d even really said hello.

She could hardly blame him. Last time, every time, she’d been the one to leave. Yet here he sat, having answered her call for the umpteenth time, loyal to a self-destructive fault.

“Oh Rex,” she whispered, drawing back into herself again. “I’m so sorry.”

“What for?" he asked, blinking in earnest confusion. "Wolffe hid—”

“Not for that. I mean, yes, I'm sorry it’s taken so long to...”

To what, find him? Oh, she was plenty sorry for that, mostly the part where she’d given up trying to. _For Force sake, Ahsoka, five years!? That's longer than the fraggin’ war._

“...to reconnect,” she finished. “But I shouldn’t have walked away on Neimoidia. We were doing such good things together. Picking up so many broken pieces. But the other mission ... there were debts I had to repay.”

“You’ve done great things for the Rebellion, Ahsoka. I helped my kind, you helped yours.” He laughed. “I wouldn’t have said it then, I probably would have done something boneheaded and hidden your lightsabers, but you were right to leave.” He winked at her. “After all, I never could keep up with you.” 

This again.

Sure, his hand was still wrapped around her headtail, but nothing _else_ was happening. A trace of self-doubt had been palpable enough when she’d touched his mind, but so was the unmistakable fact that Rex was locked and loaded and ready to blast them both into blissful orbit. Hells, she could _taste_ that much on the sensitive roof of her mouth. 

Nobody could _ever_ have accused the Captain of performance anxiety—no naming names but someone positively got off _on being watched—and she wasn’t about to start making allowances for nerves, or age, or any one of fifteen other feeble excuses he was likely turning over in his mind for _not_ kissing her that karkin’ minute. So Ahsoka scooted closer, brushed her lips against his with a whispering touch, and pressed her tall forehead against his. _

__

__

_Mistake that at your peril, Mando man._

“It’s… been a while, _cyar’ika_. Longer than a while,” he rumbled. 

“A wise captain once told me,” she began, taking his unoccupied hand, callused in all the right places, and firmly placing it on the fleshy side of her right lek, “that experience outranks everything.” 

For emphasis—and emboldened by the endearment—she snaked a hand down the vee of Rex’s bodysuit. She grazed her hand over the bulge between his crossed legs. The hard angles of frontline warfare had given way to the shapely firmness of industrious exile, still every degree as erotic to her.

“No excuses, Rex. _Please_.” Ahsoka almost sobbed the word. But both masters had taught her courage—and one in particular never to kill a mood⏤so she swallowed hard, flashed her best fanged smile, and concentrated on brazen flirtation to keep herself one thought ahead of a breakdown. 

She didn’t have to concentrate for long. When Rex gingerly trailed his fingertips down her flushed lek and rolled the sensitive tip between his large fingers, she no longer could. There was a new dominance to his voice when he asked, “And what makes you think I’m so experienced, hmmm?” 

_Oh._ There it was. That delicious _depth_ in his throat—and the gorg stuck in hers. Stars, she could feel his words thrumming in her other tips, the hollow ones grown so tall that it’d now be a real trick for him to make her buzz at both ends. A challenge for later, maybe.

“It wouldn’t be the way I know how to kiss your tips till your toes curl, would it?”— _was she projecting?!_ —“Or how to make you see stars six galaxies over with just these?” He held up two fingers, the ones that had been stroking her headtail all this time. 

And he flicked his tongue between them. 

FUckkk. _Dogma’s Dare._

That warmth in her tummy from earlier? When she’d just been excited at the prospect of a sleepover and a snog? Yeah, now it felt like reactor fluid melting into her groin, soldering her leggings to her thighs.

“You—” she croaked, having to swallow and start again, “You better remind me. Like you said, it’s been a while.” 

“Too damn right,” he said. With the speed of a supersoldier who’s made up his mind to give her the gun, Rex twisted out of his idle, reclined pose and lifted Ahsoka by her armpits to set her on the table. She squealed in surprise. Then she nearly choked when his hands shoved her knees apart so he could position himself between them. 

“Woah, hold your dewbacks, Captain!” she said. “Not _here_ , this isn’t our ship! Next one over.” 

The hand she hadn’t thrown out to halt his smooth head pointed towards the door. It wasn’t exactly lights-out on the _Ghost,_ ; the fact none of the Spectre crew had interrupted them yet was some kind of cosmic miracle. But Rex’s hands still held her legs open, and his brows wiggled under her palm, the way they did when he was about to suggest something bold and probably a little cheeky. 

“Now who’s making excuses? If you’re so worried... _use the Force_ ,” he purred. He twiddled his fingers atop her knees, the universal gesture among Force-blind beings for doing something wizard with your mind. 

“What? It doesn’t work like—”

“We both know it does.”

“No.” If he was suggesting… _no_. Besides, Hera knew this ship’s circuitry like back of her hand. She could override anything Ahsoka did in a mynock minute. 

“I gave you an order.” 

“Pffft. I outrank you. Always have.”

“Really?” Rex asked. His gaze, intense and golden, held her rapt as his hands slid with cruel deliberation along her inner thighs. A feather light touch over her wet center drew out a ragged _“ohhh pleasssse”_ from her lips before she could bite it back. 

“Then why are _you_ begging _me_?”

He flicked a forefinger against her clit. 

Ahsoka whined. “Okay! Okay, okay. _For old time’s sake_. But no distractions, Rex, or I’ll kark this up.” 

One of his brazen hands ventured further up her stomach and began to pry at the band of her leggings. Clearly the thought of Hera or Kanan or Zeb walking in wasn’t _necessarily_ a dealkiller. Scoundrel. 

Ahsoka slapped his hand. “Look, do you _want_ to get caught and have to explain the finer points of power coupling to Ezra? ‘Cause Hera will absolutely hang that on you.”

“No, sir.” 

“Didn’t think so. Now hold still.” 

Ahsoka closed her eyes and tried to steady her breathing. What a joke. Her groin was throbbing; her lekku were vibrant, pulsing with a heady rush of endorphins; and the musky taste of Rex’s desire was lodged in the back of her throat. But she was no Padawan now, and she had learned her tricks from the best in the business. 

Subtly manipulating machinery and influencing electrons had been Master Kenobi’s speciality when it came to locks. Anakin, for all his love of mechanics, had never had the patience; he preferred the straightforward method of taking a lightsaber to a control panel, or just carving his way through a door entirely. But Ahsoka had recognized the value of Obi-Wan’s indiscernible mode, and she'd practised it long before the Empire made the conspicuous use of lightsabers a good way to get greased. 

There were three entrances to the lounge, two ladder hatches and one door—well, two if you counted the subsidiary galley. Ahsoka slowly extended her consciousness with the Force to bring all three locking mechanisms before her mind’s eye. She tinkered with polarities _just so,_ until they were locked in the lounge from the inside. So Rex was right: the Force _definitely_ worked this way, even though she was sure only Anakin would have applauded her for it—if not for the way she was about to be every kind of inappropriate on that table. 

 

Ahsoka’s indigo eyes flash wide, taking in the new firmness in Rex’s jaw and flare of his nostrils, and she doesn’t hesitate. She brings her mouth down hard upon his, eager to spoil herself silly with the new sensation of Rex’s beard here, there, _everywhere,_ and shove half a decade of _good enough_ out the airlock. 

He kisses back, hot and open-mouthed, darting his tongue in between her sharp teeth. The intervening years haven’t made his mouth soft, not if the way he sweeps over her fangs is anything to go by. In seconds, Ahsoka can taste trace amounts of blood alongside ruik root and testosterone, and _fuck why is that so hot_? Her lips, thicker and warmer than his, drink him in as she cradles his perfect face in her hands. That pulsing between her legs grows deeper, hungrier, with every tip-tingling groan she sucks out of him and she wants to make it _so much worse_.

She draws her foot up in between his legs and gingerly toes the bulging mass of _Rex_ that’s zipped up tight. 

“ _Shitting Siths_ ,” he hisses, bucking into the ball of her foot. 

As if reminded that they’re on borrowed time and this _was_ his idea, Rex yanks down the band of her leggings and rolls them over her hips. Recycled air chills the molten mess of Ahsoka’s exposed folds. Birdbumps bloom along her legs as Rex, careful never to let his tongue slip from her mouth, uncovers inch after inch of sienna skin. 

Ahsoka leans back on the table, taking Rex’s bottom lip with her for a beat, and kicks her leggings off over his head. She’s feeling more than a little like one of her dancing lekkued cousins at any number of shady cantinas and clubs she’d patronised or (more often than not) infiltrated over the years. But as he’s sitting right there, riveted and hard, she can’t resist laying it on thick. She suspends her legs in the air for a languid moment, letting him take in the full swell of her ass and the dark, damp cleavage at the base of her thighs, before she brings one knee to rest over his broad shoulder. Her other foot lowers to knead at his erection, and she levels him with a half-lidded gaze and her most wanton smile. (To be fair, she can hardly keep her eyes _open_ , what the familiar taste of his lust overpowering her predatory olfactory nodes and drugging her _blind_.) 

And then Ahsoka’s world goes completely black, because Rex just slides two long fingers inside her and, _oh sweet moon mother,_ he’s in _deep_. With his other hand he brings one of her delicate lekku tips to his mouth and _sucks_ —no teeth, just warm suction and flicks of his tongue over her second-best erogenous asset, and this, _this_ is why experience matters. He’s playing her like a Nubian hair harp, masterfully, like it’s only been five hours, not five years, and they’re just warming up again.

Rex’s fingers work her core to the rhythm of some distant pulsar only he can see. Rapid and hot. She’s panting his name—“ _Rex, Rex, Rexxx_ ”—and fuck if his hand isn’t already coated...

But Ahsoka wants to see his beard drenched and _stained_. She grabs his wrist and drags his fingers— _hells he’s curling them_ —out of her dripping besh and up to her lips. Rex’s golden eyes, now almost black with desire, blow wide as she holds him with a daring gaze, slips her mouth over his saturated fingers, and slowly sucks off her blue juices. 

Her lek falls out of his mouth as he groans her name. “ _Soka_.”

Rex grinds himself hard one final time against her unyielding foot. Then he shifts back in his seat and takes his wet hand down to his crotch to free himself. Ahsoka can’t see anything from where she’s sat, but she can tell from the flex in his bicep, the beautiful cords of tendon and pronounced veins, that he’s pumping himself firmly. Just the thought of it makes her dizzy. And when his bold nose aims for her wet core, she lets out a whine, scratchy and feral. 

But Rex knows to make her burn with desperate anticipation first. He trails bristly kisses down her inner thigh, biting now and then, marking her as _his_ , igniting nerve endings and drawing any blood left in Ahsoka’s punch-drunk head down to her lower half. It’s her turn to buck when his hot breath flutters over her sex. 

Then there’s _hair_ brushing against hyperstimulated skin, and when he _finally_ slides his tongue over her clit, Ahsoka thinks she’s never wanted anything more in her life than Rex’s bearded face pressed up against her folds. 

She’s bent backwards, palms on the table, supporting her languid head and trembling chest, and positively _melting_ into Rex’s warm and ardent mouth.

Joining the Rebellion had been like finding her purpose again. But having Rex drowning in her, _lapping_ for the boys in blue, drawing himself out to the taste of her, his muscular arm wrapped around her leg and his wide hand splayed across her arching lower back, holding her to everything good and solid and familiar that is _himself_ , like he’s the center of galaxy and they’re not hurtling wildly through a vacuum at some unholy speed—

Well. That’s like coming _home._

And she’s coming undone for him. Rex’s skillful tongue dances between her engorged clit and darting inside her core, tight and pulsing, until he’s stroked into submission the clenching in her abdomen that aches for his hard length. She yields and quivers with a scream that’s silent to other species but trills through her own montrals. 

When the thrilling tide of pleasure subsides enough for Ahsoka to bat her eyes open, she realizes she’s floating above the table and a wide-eyed Rex. He's tenderly holding her ankles as if she were a helium probe balloon that might go gliding away into the atmosphere. Not that her head doesn’t want to, especially when she sees his beard stained the same color as her stripes. 

“Oh boy,” Rex sighs in awe, “I always loved it when that happened.” 

Ahsoka smiles at him fondly. There was a reason why, as a Padawan, she'd been encouraged to strengthen her physiological connection to the Force in every way but one. If attachment in a Force-wielder could lead to possessive darkness, or so the doctrine went, copulation could definitely result in injury and embarrassment.

(“Don’t try it, Snips, you’ll break something—or someone,” had been Anakin’s ominous and unhelpful advice when he caught her reading an explicit holonovel. Which he’d proceeded to crush in his mechno-hand.) 

_Yeah, but only if you don’t practice, Master Hypocrite._

Ahsoka shoves that particular brand of nostalgia out of her mind and concentrates on its more attractive corporeal form sitting hard and unsatisfied in the berth below her. Rex’s hands glide up her calves as she lowers herself down to settle her knees on either side of his hips, opening herself atop him, limber as a nexu. She presses her sex onto his erection. And she _grinds._

She’d never admit to missing the war. Hells, _no._ But she did miss some of its accoutrements. Like the codpiece she used to color blue, getting herself off in a hurry while Rex watched, open-mouthed and sealed and helpless. He hasn't lost the habit of wearing a utility belt around his compact waist, however; Ahsoka fingers it apart, idly wondering if she’d have a chance to use it for purchase later, maybe against the wall of her cabin…

But then Rex kisses her, deep and deliberate. His knuckles graze the sensitive undersides of her lekku as he draws his hands up to cup the fullness of her breasts. She's reminded of the instant gratification stiffening even more underneath her as she writhes and he kneads. And as the utility belt clatters to the floor, Ahsoka rolls down his pants, rubbing his leaking cock along the long breadth of her palm, two fingers stroking deep enough to tangle in the hairs around his taut balls. 

She breaks off their kiss to bring her mouth to his freckled ear, that bizarre alien organ she knows how to exploit, flicking her tongue inside and sucking the lobe hard. “Fuck me, Rex,” she breathes, hot and demanding. “ _Fuck. Me_.” 

He shudders out a low grown. He was never one to say much when really aroused, though he could be persuaded to talk a big talk now and then. She reminds him of it. “Show me those faraway stars.” 

Rex takes a hand from where it’s been rolling one of her pebbled nipples and snakes it down between them. He grasps himself, pumping once, twice, as Ahsoka tilts herself up and back. It only takes one glance of his broad, dripping head against her slit and she comes down _hard_ on him with another low moan, enveloping him, demanding every broad inch. 

Force, there was nothing like a human. _Her_ human. _Her_ Captain. And his thick cock that makes hard contact with ridges she'd forgotten she had; his broad shoulders that carried her when everything else collapsed around them; his beard that tickles the receptive join between her lek and throat as he groans and thrusts into her. 

It’s not the best position for him. He can’t get the leverage he clearly wants to pound her into another dimension. But his big hands are wedged in the crease between her hips and upper thighs, holding her down upon him again with that same quiet, determined strength. Ahsoka deepens atop him, her core tensing around Rex’s fullness. He bucks on instinct as her nails drive up his spine to claw at the sensitive root of his skull, and she can feel herself cresting again as she rides him, cajoling them both towards a crippling release. 

Then she’s there, convulsing around his cock, a violent rush of endorphins and Force-sensitivity exploding behind her eyes. This time she has to bite her tongue to stifle keening whines and concentrates on drilling down around him instead of floating upwards in euphoric surrender again. 

“Don’t leave me again, Soka,” he pants into her cheek, “Not again. Never again.” 

_Oh Force_ , she’d say _anything_ in that moment. Just like she knows he’d ask anything as he comes apart with throaty groans, spilling everything he has for her, relaxing into her embrace, his head coming to rest under her chin, panting hard into her breast.

But the truth she wants to tell him and the truth he wants to hear are as different as gungans and gundarks. So she just hugs her Captain tight to herself and nods, blinking back tears. 

Because now isn’t the moment to mention it. She doesn’t know how she ever could. 

The shadow around something familiar, but long gone. 

The leaden pull along a severed strand of the Force.

And the feeling that she’s gravitating by milimeters towards some unfinished reckoning. The one she and Rex ran away from all those years ago.

Ahsoka hopes she’s wrong about the trajectory of her life. With Rex warm and spent underneath her, smelling like roots and grease and warm sheets, ready to take his place by her side in a new fight, it’s easy to imagine a future where she tells him she’ll never leave and actually mean it. 

Maybe they’ve been orbiting each other all these years. Maybe this time their love would be enough to keep them there.

**Author's Note:**

> *Huge* thank you to alyyks (alexiel_neesan), NotebookishType, and AceQueenKing for beta-ing!!
> 
> "Dogma's Dare" is Fives’ favorite story, someone should ask him about it… ;)
> 
> Great stuff, xeno. You can make up your own shitty rules and in this house Ahsoka’s girl jizz is blue. Togruta headtail coloring is a wonderful and indicative thing.


End file.
